Elderflame dagger

EP 1: Ignition, Act 1 · July 10, 2020 · 4,950 VP. Part of VALORANT's first and only Ultra Edition skin line. The Elderflame collection was internally codenamed "Dragon" for over a year, with the concept dating back to 2015 and the first concept art by senior artist Timur Mutsaev arriving in 2018 under the name "Elemental Dragon." Art Lead Sean Marino's consistent response to anyone asking when they'd make it was "we are not ready to make Dragon." Production took 10 months once greenlit. The team established four core design pillars: Dark and Brooding, Living and Breathing, Loyal, and Lethal. The tone had to be "powerful and badass. Not cute." For the melee specifically, concept artist Denis explored several directions ranging from a dragon claw to a literal baby dragon. The baby dragon was scrapped because it looked like the creature was being choked and the team "felt weird about that." Once they decided the melee would not be a baby dragon, they felt it was okay to set it on fire. VFX artist Stefan Jevremovic pushed the fire and smoke effects as far as he could, and the result caught the attention of game designer Sal Garozzo, who came running to ask "Who made that melee?" The devs initially thought they had done something wrong since Sal rarely comments on skins unless they hurt gameplay, but it turned out he loved it. That moment made the team realize how far they could push melees compared to guns. Stefan then went back and amped up VFX on several other existing melee skins as a result. The name "Elderflame" was chosen to evoke a dragon breed that thrives and rules its own alternate fantastical world. A heated argument among roughly eight developers at Lead Designer Trevor Romleski's desk also revealed they weren't technically making a dragon but a drake, which Trevor made sure everyone knew. The collection's audio was built from recordings of a walrus, a Bengal tiger, an alligator recorded on a developer's mum's phone, and a camel. Features 3 color variants (red, blue, dark).